Guess What. The Developers Have Been Screwing Us.

Here’s some brilliant insight from an informed observer who was sitting at the table when El Paso residential property owners got screwed. I mean, one of the times.

Some people, myself included, were thinking, why do we need a QoL bond issue when new homes should be paying the capital cost for infrastructure and amenities like libraries, parks, police and fire stations, etc.? Well, the builders were thinking that they did not want to pay the connection fees that many other cities charge new homes to fund these necessities up front, but to load them onto the general tax base.

Eventually, some connection fees were mandated and the matter to increase fees recently came up again in CC, but was tabled to a future date. This is the hot potato of development here and, IMHO, the reason why development has not paid for itself in El Paso and why we need a QoL bond issue to play “catch-up” every ten years. It goes double for downtown that pays little or no property tax. We play this Ponzi scheme with growth, privatizing its benefits and shoving its cost onto the next bigger fool who, ultimately, is the homeowner.